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PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 2:54 pm 
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So, how safe is Vail to use for a home user like me with two Mac machines and three windows machines?
What difficulties will I likely encounter? I have three drives in my MSS…the one it came with, and two one terabyte drives.
Are there any special instructions to install Vail on a Mac that uses VMware to run Windows 7?

Also, the URL in the MS Install guide that supposedly shows how to install Vail leads to a dead URL.

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Last edited by hakr on Fri Dec 03, 2010 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:19 pm 
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Not safe at all, MS is in the process of removing Drive Extender so the underlying storage technology will change completely. The storage technology has thus far not been compatible between releases so you have to reload all your data. The official release is said to be in 1H 2011 which is up to 6 months away. Vail should only be used for testing and I wouldn't even bother with the current beta anymore.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:39 pm 
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yakuza wrote:
Not safe at all, MS is in the process of removing Drive Extender so the underlying storage technology will change completely. The storage technology has thus far not been compatible between releases so you have to reload all your data. The official release is said to be in 1H 2011 which is up to 6 months away. Vail should only be used for testing and I wouldn't even bother with the current beta anymore.


If I understand the Drive Extender, it is what allows saved data to extend over more than one hard drive in the MSS. So, if MS eliminates that and one of several drives in your MSS is full, how would data find its way to an unfilled disk?

Is there more to what Drive Externder does than that?

Would MS implement some sort of RAID subroutine?

I was really hoping that I would be able to use Vail to more fully use the MSS on my Mac Desktop and Mac Laptop. I use a Mac program called SuperDuper to back up and restore my Macs from the MSS, and I also back up Windows partitions on my Macs to the MSS.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:55 pm 
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Check the recent blog posts on the removal of Drive Extender and in the General forum, there's lots of discussion about what MS could do, though they've not announced any specifics.

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PostPosted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:58 pm 
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MS will leave the Vail implementation of drive management to the hardware vendors, meaning that if you run Vail on a DIY, you need to determine if you are going to use RAID, unraid, flexraid, etc. IMHO, this guts the product and makes it less desirable vis a vis a Linux solution. If vendors like Tranquil implement something in an off the shelf configuration, they will be selling unique flavors of WHS and that will get confusing fast.

I'm really not sure that Vail has a future.

Jim

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PostPosted: Thu Dec 23, 2010 10:37 am 
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Though I do morn the passing of DE, this does not deminish the overall package for me.
If anything I wish they had left it in as an option/service complimentarty to normal storage methods.
I believe the ease of use of the console interface, the pre canned web experience and the minimized user management, the backup solution really is what makes the product.
Yes you can do all these things with other products but none of them have the foundation of WHS.
When Vail is released I will look at it very seriously, but that being said If Microsoft keeps taking a good product and trying to push it into the Big Boy Server catagory. (Removing all the consumer friendly features)
Why wouldn't you just run a regular version of server be it Windows/Mac/Linux.
And just like the regular IT world once you setup your server let it age 2-3 generations between upgrades.
I think they are trying to save margin by making common features between Aurora and Vail but the Aurora team is from the Small Business Group and don't know a thing about Joe Consumer.
I think if any company can take a perfectly good product and make us hate it they can, remember Vista and ME?
Why did people keep running XP when Vista was supposed to be so awsome?
Microsoft tried to give the public what they DEEMED we wanted.
But rather than bash Microsoft I will hold judgement until I see the final product, but for now I'm working on moving from WHSv1 to Windows server 2008. (See The Beast in DiY forum for details)
I have already figured out a work around that shouldnt be too difficult to manage even without DE.

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